The Futility Infielder

After the roughest couple of work weeks I've had in a long, long time, I've escaped from New York to the relative solitude of my parents house in Salt Lake City. I haven't had much time to write lately, so I'll be trying to catch up on several hot stove-related matters in the next few days.

Perhaps the most shocking move this week was the trade which sent Braves pitcher Kevin Millwood, an 18-game winner in 2002, to division rival Philadelphia for Johnny Estrada, a catcher who spent most of the season in AAA. It's difficult, if not impossible, to believe that Braves GM John Schuerholz couldn't get more for Millwood than a 26-year-old backup catcher who went .279/.322/.417 in Scranton-Wilks Barre after spending a year filling in for the injured Mike Lieberthal in Philly. But that's Schuerholz's story, and he's sticking to it. According to Schuerholz, this was a decision dicated by economics. With Greg Maddux accepting arbitration, and Millwood slated to get a big raise from his $3.9 million salary via arbitration as well, the AOL bean-counters apparently felt that the Braves couldn't afford both, even with Tom Glavine departing.

How that translates into trading your #2 starter to your division rival is beyond me. Earlier in the week, the New York Post had speculated that Millwood might be an attractive option for the Yanks, and a good trade fit given the Braves' gaping first-base hole, which could have been ably filled by Nick Johnson. Obviously that didn't come to pass; the Yanks may still have their doubts about trading Johnson, but this clearly would have been a more valuable deal than the king's ransom Montreal is asking for Bartolo Colon or Javier Vasquez.

As for Atlanta, they've now turned over 3/5 of their rotation this offseason. But have they improved? Here's a look at the Braves' front four in 2002; the last two columns are their 2002 and 2003 salaries (including rather steep arbitration projections for Maddux and Milwood):

           W  L    IP    ERA   K/9  WHIP   K/W  HR/9  BABIP  dERA   $02    $03(pro)

Maddux	  16	 6	 199.1	 2.62	 5.33	 1.20	 2.62	 0.63	 .282	 3.59   13.1 -> 18.0

Glavine	 18	11	 224.2	 2.96	 5.09	 1.28	 1.63	 0.84	 .269	 4.39    8.6 -> 11.0

Millwood	18	 8	 217.0	 3.24	 7.38	 1.16	 2.74	 0.66	 .271	 3.42    3.9 -> 10.0

Moss	    12	 6	 179.0	 3.42	 5.58	 1.28	 1.25	 1.01	 .232	 4.97    0.2 ->  0.2

Total    64 31  820.0  3.05  5.86  1.23  1.93  0.78  .265  4.05   25.8 -> 39.2

The Braves as a whole had a very efficient defense; their .730 Defensive Efficiency Rating was the second-best in the NL, 18 points above the league average. This means that they allowed a meager .270 average on balls in play, which kept their 2002 ERAs down. But note that these pitchers didn't have especially good strikeout rates or control; they don't project especially well using Defense-Independent ERA (dERA). And these four pitchers look to cost about 50% more than they did last season.

Here's the retooled foursome, with free-agent addition Paul Byrd and trade acquisitions Mike Hampton and Russ Ortiz:

           W  L    IP    ERA   K/9  WHIP   K/W  HR/9  BABIP  dERA   $03

Maddux	  16	 6	 199.1	 2.62	 5.33	 1.20	 2.62	 0.63	 .282	 3.59   18.0

Ortiz	   14	10	 214.1	 3.61	 5.75	 1.33	 1.46	 0.63	 .266	 4.39    4.4

Byrd	    17	11	 228.1	 3.90	 5.08	 1.15	 3.39	 1.42	 .259	 4.39    3.0

Hampton	  7	15	 178.2	 6.15	 3.73	 1.79	 0.81	 1.21	 .318	 5.38    2.0

Total    54 42  820.2  4.00  5.02  1.35  1.71  0.98  .280  4.42   27.4

If the first foursome didn't project well, this one looks even worse. Hampton was a walking disaster area in Colorado, and God only knows whether he can get sorted out again. Byrd is a gopher-prone, low-strikeout pitcher who did surprisingly well in Kansas City, but he's never put two good seasons together back-to-back. Ortiz walks too damn many guys, doesn't strikeout enough, and furthermore, has his stats camouflaged by the best pitcher's park in the game; his ERA at Pac Bell over the past three seasons is 3.32, while on the road it's 4.48. Yargh.

This new, less-fearsome foursome will cost about the same as last season's foursome did, depending upon how Maddux does in arbitration. A lot of that is due to the smoke-and-mirrors of the Hampton deal, which has the Florida Marlins picking up most of Mikey Moustache's salary for the next three seasons. Byrd's contract is backloaded, with a $7 million player option for '04. Ortiz has a $5.7 million team option for '04. His current salary also includes a bonus incentive based on innings pitched which kicks in at 195; he's averaged 209 over the past four seasons, so he may cost a bit more than indicated here.

Over on Braves Journal, readers are calling for Schuerholz's head. But my longtime reader Trevise suggests in a comment to my previous post that this rotation remake has more to do with the corporate mentality behind the Braves than it does with Schuerholz:

This is also why I say that "No Corporate Ownership" is one of the few things that MLB should follow the NFL's lead on. Sure, Schuerholtz has made his share of mistakes but he doesn't make an egregious trade such as this then go to a press conference and make the statements he did, if he wasn't forced into it by someone in a "non-baseball" position.

While it's obvious that non-baseball factors were involved in this decision, that doesn't mean we should let Schuerholz off the hook for the baseball decisions which painted him into this corner. Not signing Glavine was a smart move given his asking price and his projections, and taking a flier on Hampton at that price wasn't the worst idea ever. But going out and picking up a couple of underwhelming mid-rotation guys who don't project particularly well and who cost a significant chunk of change BEFORE getting caught with his pants down on the Maddux decision, and THEN being forced into the Millwood one doesn't speak well for Schuerholz. He could have passed on Byrd and Ortiz until he knew what Maddux was doing, and figured that the loss of Glavine's salary was Millwood's gain. That would have left him with Maddux, Millwood, Hampton, and Moss as his front four, at around $30 million. A bit more expensive than the Braves were willing to go, but not so much that they couldn't make up the difference in other areas. This team, after all, paid $3 million to Vinny Castilla to put up a robust .616 OPS (exactly the same as Rey Ordoñez), and they're on the hook for $4.5 mil to him for 2003. John Schuerholz can whine all he wants about how baseball's economics stink, but irresponsibility like that buys no sympathy here.

Braves fans better hope Leo Mazzone can work a few more miracles along the lines of John Burkett and Chris Hammond, or there's going to be a new sheriff in town in the NL East.